Source Water

Rio de Janeiro boasts the world's largest water treatment plant, and it's working overtime. The Guandu Water Treatment Station provides 90 percent of the city of Rio's water, and it's increasingly grappling with water quality problems. One challenge is that forest loss and landscape degradation upstream of the city is causing soil erosion, which generates more pollution, and fills reservoirs with sediment instead of water.

When it comes to answering questions about whether the oil and gas industry’s wastewater can be safely reused for other purposes, like food crops, livestock, or even drinking water, there are a number of other serious factors to be considered.

After the Supreme Court, in its 2006 Rapanos v. United States decision, admonished the U.S. EPA and Army Corps of Engineers to once and for all come up with an acceptable definition of “waters of the United States,” which is the linchpin for all regulation under the Clean Water Act, the agencies, nine years later, finalized regulations redefining that term in their 2015 Rule.

Bisphenol A (BPA) is an industrial chemical that has been used to make certain plastics and resins since the 1960s. In recent years, science has shown that exposure to BPA and its alternatives can result in possible human health effects. Adverse effects on neurodevelopment, behavior, metabolism, and the immune and cardiovascular systems have been found in human and animal models. As a result, regulators and researchers are interested in learning more about bisphenol chemicals.

Harmful algal blooms — the overgrowth of algae in water — are a major problem across the nation. Blooms occur when excess nutrients (nitrogen and phosphorus), combine with sunlight, and warm temperatures in water bodies. They can cause severe, negative impacts on aquatic ecosystems, the economy, and human health.

While San Diego has a reputation for beautiful weather in a sunny seaside setting, its growing population in the southernmost area of rain-starved California is a recipe for trouble in paradise. That challenge has spurred the creation of Pure Water San Diego — a multi-phase, multi-year program with the goal of using recycled water for up to one-third of San Diego’s water supply by the year 2035.

Across the country, farmers face unrelenting pressure to conserve both water and energy. From California to Texas, recent droughts and declining groundwater levels require more pumping to provide irrigation water for crops. Pumping water takes energy, as do many other precision agriculture tasks involved in running a successful farm today. This symbiotic relationship between water and energy use — often called the energy-water nexus — is taking its toll on America’s agricultural industry.

Fresh water is the most important resource for human life on earth. People can survive far longer without food than without water, and virtually all of our food sources require fresh water to grow or create.

The cities of Duluth, Minnesota and Superior, Wisconsin, and the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa reservation are all situated at the western end of Lake Superior, along the St. Louis River where it flows into the lake.

If I were asked to describe the makeup of the Water Online and Water Innovations audience, I could say it’s a mix of engineers and operators focusing on clean and/or wastewater processes within municipal or industrial settings. But that wouldn’t tell the whole story, because you are much more than that — you are caretakers of our planet’s most valuable resource.